Matt had an amazing junior surfing career and has worked with his long time coach and one of Australia’s best coaches Mick Cain since he was a young surfer. It’s fantastic to see him back and surfing better than he ever has. He continues to be one of the most exciting Australians moving into a time of better WT events and surfings Olympic inclusion.

Matt weighs around 69Kg's but throws the spray of someone 15 Kilos heavier. How? In this post I’ve tried to break down why he throws so much spray. Hopefully you can implement some of the below into your surfing performance.

Watch the above clip and notice the following:

1) He commits to surfing top to bottom.

From watching the footage and online he is heavily focused on major manoeuvres. It's no secret that the judges love surfers who are performing critical, committed moves.

Both forehand and backhand, when he wants to commit to top to bottom surfing he commits to a deep bottom turn. This gives him the best opportunity to perform major manoeuvres.

2) He turns early out of the top of the wave

This is where the timing over power conversation begins. Having great timing and using your rails when turning out of the top can throw more water/spray than what a powerful turn can throw.

Notice in the video above where Matt Banting is doing re-entries how he is using his rails to turn out of the top of the wave.

So rather than go super vertical he is using his rails to throw spray and therefore make his turns look bigger.

This is also a great way to create a greater speed turn to turn.

Think of it like this, Matt Banting gets to oncoming sections early, uses his rails to turn (rail work = speed). If you are using your rail on a bottom turn you are generating speed, if you use your rail off the top you will also generate speed.

In the diagram below, the red indicates where Matt Banting has started using his rail off the top.

3) Backfoot Kick

Matt Banting tends to kick his back foot as his board impacts with the top of the wave. This combined with step #2 helps create that real throwing of spray.

The diagram below shows where Matt Banting begins to "kick out" his back leg.

4) Stay Centred

Matt Banting remains very centred over his board, which gives him that look like he's always in control and his percentages of finishes is very high.

This also means that he can quickly transition from one turn into the next very quickly because his recovery time is very small. Due to him remaining very centred over his board.

Hopefully those 4 points can begin to help you throw some more spray, finish your manoeuvres at a higher speed and have your combos become more deadly.